2001 Travel Notes

In 1999 I had the great fortune of reuniting with Mei, my past girlfriend from Taiwan that I had not expected I would ever see again. Back then our lives were going in different directions; me searching to test myself alone on voyages to distant seas and she making her career in the Taiwan export business.

One day several years after we parted, a fortune teller told Mei her future husband was "a man of the four oceans." This started Mei to thinking back to the only man in her life that fit that description. She contacted me soon after and we reunited at just the right time - both of us were now ready for a permanent relationship.

In May 2001, Mei and I sailed Atom from Trinidad to Margarita Island, Venezuela, enjoying a tranquil two-day downwind passage. On May 10 we departed Margarita on the 28-foot Taipan sloop Islander to deliver her to Brazil, which is described in the The Long Way Back To Brazil on the Articles page.

Islander's route from Venezuela to Brazil.

On November 3, we sailed as hired crew from Cabedelo, Brazil back to Trinidad on the 44-foot Dean Catamaran Dawn Dancer, thus completing a long circular cruise around the Atlantic. The 2,050 nautical mile return passage to Trinidad took 12 sailing days plus a one day layover at French Guiana's Iles du Salut. My previous visit to Iles du Salut on Atom is described in my article in the May/June issue of Latitudes & Attitudes Magazine, called There's This Place: Devil's Island. Check out The Multihull Experience for a description of what it's like for a longtimemonohull sailor to make his first long offshore passage on a flashy new catamaran.I try to figure out if sailing level at 10 knots is reallyas good as multihull sailors make it sound. On November 23 we returned to Margarita Island, launched Atom, and took off to cruise the coast and islands of Venezuela.